Discount Space Marine - Sword/AR Versatility

[soupenjoyer]

Originally, this build started off with the idea to use the chainsword and an assault rifle, however when I was trying to use the chainsword as a main weapon I found it to be a bit unreliable.

Ended up swapping it out for a tungsten machete and it ended up being pretty strong.

Goes without saying it's Dominating viable, it was extremely fun to run a sort of hybrid build like this instead of one that's completely specialized in swords.

So the build looks like this: underrail.info/build/?Hg4GBwcDAwZQRQDCoCgAAF1WAAB4eh5sXgAAAAAAwqBaOSTCo8KMEw0VRMKNSUVVPBLCtnzCgeKyiAXisokC4rWuCN-_

This build could surprisingly clear most of the game pretty comfortably(I say most but there are 2 fights which gave it a lot of trouble, more on that later), it's a strength sword build, and it's also psiless, however that is mostly for thematic reasons, you could easily take TM if you wanted.

That being said this build does have a good amount of positives:

Being able to deal damage from range.
A veritable blender up close
Pretty good mobility, it's nothing crazy, but it's pretty good considering the main armour piece has 56% armour penalty.
Good tanking capabilities. You're not a tungsten tank so you can't go crazy, but with 587 health, regen vest and 66%/24 mech res, you can brute force a lot of enemies.

Gear:

Weapons - Curved Energy Tungsten Machete/Smart Rapid Muzzled 8.6mm Hornet. Claymore for sweeping if needed. Chainsword for the fun of it.
Armour - Super Steel Armour, with 2 additional SS plates, Regen Vest and a serrated Tichrome blade, should be at 56% AP. Also had a set of Infused Wyrm, good for acid natives, also underrated.
Belt - Commando belt, or Doctors pouch if you aren't going to be using the AR.
Head - Smart NVG Tchortist bioscrubber, or Death's grin for brutality procs.
Feet - Infused Bison tabis. pig leather early.
Food - Mushroom brew. Cow juice is OK too.

*A very small disclaimer, my experience with AR builds is limited, I dont run them because I found very early on they were pretty boring, so the AR I ended up using came from me looking at the wiki for 10 minutes, you might benefit from taking a different ammo type, i chose 8.6mm because it gave me 10ap shots with RR, which gave me better rounded bursts to mix with stacked flurries.
*Disclaimer #2, I've since learned that smart doesn't apply to burst anymore, whats more surprising is that i ran both a smart module and smart NVG and still shredded despite it.

The swords were still the main damage dealer, and if you're wondering "why no crit?", well because it wasn't needed, tungsten machetes have high base damage, and even then with a 180% crit damage, landing one was still a welcome surprise. But also being strength based rather than dex, gives you higher base damage instead of higher crit, which does come in handy when dealing with enemies with high mech DT. The only enemies I ever needed to use EW on were Naga's and big t, the rest you could cleave straight through with a good edge emitter.

Flurry ends up missing a lot, and when it did I usually popped adrenaline and used burst, if you could get 3 off in one turn, you're usually dropping at least 3+ enemies unless they're tanky.

The mobility might appear lacking at first, but the actual armour penalty for this build was only 32%, and arguably could go lower, you don't "need" the bleed from armour, it was nice to stack up TFB really fast though, so not sure I'd get rid of it. At 32% penalty Fancy Footwork was still giving me 7MP per hit, which is still pretty good considering how much bulk the build has.

AR did a very disgusting amount of damage, with only 2 feats and versatility, I feel like it was enough to reliably take on almost anything in the game. Genuinly makes me wonder how AR's can exist in their current state without being nerfed to oblivion. AR also made Jetski Combat extremely convenient and much easier than trying to flurry.

Considerations:

Not having Escape Artist didn't annoy me as much as I thought it would, because while I was forced to lose my flurry stacks, the AR turned whatever snared me, and everything around it into red mist.

Wouldn't having TM make this build way better? Probably, I want psiless for thematic reasons, if I was to go TM I'd drop dirty kick for Psycho-temporal acceleration.

Why the skill overinvestment? Because I'm extraordinarily retarded. I used the synesthete brainlet pill to test whether it would give me enough electronics to craft my machete, it did, and i continuted playing instead of reloading, unfortunately I realised my mistake too late and couldn't be fucked diving into expedition to get more pills, since i still wanted my armour I just pumped my skills higher because I could spare the points.

How did this build actually perform?

Extremely well, a lot better than I thought initially.

Once I got up to him, big t took 2 turns. I was able to facetank the tentacles pretty well. Didn't need aegis/morphine, just brew, SSD, jumping bean and focus stim.
Quadnaga was super easy, first try. (AR is not broken)
Native attacks didn't give me any trouble, the only thing that could threaten me were the sppaeters, but that was solved with mk3 plasma nades.
Carnifex got tanked, kicked in the balls and put in a blender.

Most fights were pretty breezy, anything that looked too annoying to walk up to got bursted, anything that got close to me got cleaved in half

But there were 2 fights that were trouble, Magnar and Faceless commander.

Magnar didn't give a shit about my tankiness and I lacked the mobility to stay away from him. After I cleared the front gaurds of his little palace, I swapped to Rathound Regalia so I could move around more, and that solved the issue.

Faceless commander was a fiesta, mostly because of the lack of specialization. AR bursts could kill a few enemies, but it wouldn't save me. The star of that show was brutality for sure, between that and flurry dropping multiple enemies per turn, it made it doable, although it did take me quite a few tries.

I really would've liked to have 10 spec points in versatility, but I felt like on a build with no TM not having flurry CD would cuck me, and I was right to some extent, in the longer fights if I had to wait another turn for flurry I would've been completely fucked.

I'd welcome any criticism and/or changes to the build, it's not my finest piece of work but it was really fun being able to run sword and AR, even though it felt dirty using the AR.

[Der Zooner]

Sounds like an interesting build, tin can sword is fun enough on its own.
For the sake of a Str Versatility build, shotguns are my favourite firearm to use, though it can be very easy to use a shotgun exclusively whilst forgetting your "primary" melee weapon.
Not having Concentrated Fire for your AR probably helps keep it a Versatility build rather than an occasional sword-wielding AR one, so in a weird way it might actually be a good thing.

As for criticisms, did you consider using high density super steel striders over tabi boots?
They add a fairly low amount of armour penalty given their protective value, you're not invested in stealth or dodge/evasion so those detriments don't matter, the AP reduction doesn't really matter for swords and with a good boot spring you *might* end up with more MP than you would with tabis.

You also wrote that you use smart goggles, but I'm not sure if that would give you any benefit considering your lack of special ranged attacks.
Unless I'm missing something, any other goggle type would be better, though Death's Grin is a solid pick.
The Tchortist Bioscrubber is also a surprisingly good bit of general-use headwear thanks to the boosts it gives to both your health and the regen from your armour and I recommend it for any Versatility build that doesn't care about Perception.

If you really wanted to use the chainsword, the last I heard was that it actually works pretty well with multi-spiked metal armour due to the additional damage being applied many times per use of the Chainsaw ability.
Non-reinforced super steel armour can have up to 60% DR, which is more than plenty to survive when combined with mobility from Fancy Footwork, so it could be worth crafting another super steel suit if you have a decent plate to spare for a Space Marine RP.
Shame the in-game bolter is the Tommy Gun and not an AR.

I totally agree with using a blade on your main set of armour, it's a huge benefit to stacking and maintaining TfB for a very minor cost.
The fact that you're beaten all the really hard fights of the game speak more than enough for the efficacy of the build and it sounds like fun, so I don't think there's any point nitpicking it further.

[soupenjoyer]

For the sake of a Str Versatility build, shotguns are my favourite firearm to use, though it can be very easy to use a shotgun exclusively whilst forgetting your "primary" melee weapon.
Not having Concentrated Fire for your AR probably helps keep it a Versatility build rather than an occasional sword-wielding AR one, so in a weird way it might actually be a good thing.

I had almost the same issue here, the AR ended up being so efficient with only 2 feats sometimes I forgot I was running sword until something was in front of me.

As for criticisms, did you consider using high density super steel striders over tabi boots?

I did actually, had a pair made up, they gave me a bit more MP than my tabis, but they (with the added armour penalty) also dropped my Fancy Footwork down to +6 instead of +7, between that and the con bonus/cold res I chose tabi's. looking back at it now though, SS striders might have been a better choice considering my fight with Magnar.

You also wrote that you use smart goggles, but I'm not sure if that would give you any benefit considering your lack of special ranged attacks.
Unless I'm missing something, any other goggle type would be better, though Death's Grin is a solid pick.
The Tchortist Bioscrubber is also a surprisingly good bit of general-use headwear thanks to the boosts it gives to both your health and the regen from your armour and I recommend it for any Versatility build that doesn't care about Perception.

I wore smart goggles because they increase the damage of burst, or at least I think they do, I dont play ranged/AR builds at all so I could be very wrong. The bioscrubber I also used but less than grin and SNVG, pretty much only to negate bio res from enemies like cuttlesnails, sowers, heartbreakers etc, I didn't think it'd be worth mentioning since I do that with every build.

If you really wanted to use the chainsword, the last I heard was that it actually works pretty well with multi-spiked metal armour due to the additional damage being applied many times per use of the Chainsaw ability.
Non-reinforced super steel armour can have up to 60% DR, which is more than plenty to survive when combined with mobility from Fancy Footwork, so it could be worth crafting another super steel suit if you have a decent plate to spare for a Space Marine RP.
Shame the in-game bolter is the Tommy Gun and not an AR.

I haven't tested the multi spikes, sounds interesting tbh. Normally with chainsword I'd use it in conjunction with claymore to shred everything, however when I tried using it as a flurry weapon it kind of didn't do enough, I also didn't have blitz or contraction so I couldn't make the best use of it's ability either, it made me want to swap to TM mid playthrough but ultimately decided against it since psiless runs have their own charm.

I actually forgot about the tommy gun, I went praetorian too, rip. If I ever run this again I might try it.

[Der Zooner]

>but they (with the added armour penalty) also dropped my Fancy Footwork down to +6 instead of +7

I thought that might be a problem.
Yeah, if you're willing to take the bonus per hit down to +6, you might as well go the whole hog and bring your damage resistance to up to 95%.
That would be possible with the addition of a super steel helmet to your loadout, which would replace the useless smart goggles that unfortunately no longer boost burst damage.
ARs are just so OP you'd think their damage is being boosted, I suppose.

I shilled the bioscrubber because I've been using it on an unarmed build and thanks to a good regen vest I found and its boost to healing, I regen an obscene amount per turn, something like 65 health.
It really shines with the serpent slaying sash because you end up with 40% damage reduction against poisons.
It's also nice to not have to worry about changing gear every time you come up on an area full of toxic clouds.

[soupenjoyer]

Damn, I really wasted a headslot on on SNVG lmao, shame.

I'm for sure taking bioscrubber as a main for the AR then, not much else for it.

I might run this build again sometime and change a few things, I'm not much of a fan of going full can because then it's more likely to play out as a tincan AR with sword on the side rather than the focus. But I do want to try striders and helmet/bioscrubber, because an SS helmet wont drop me to +5 on FF, so it's worth trying.